Improvements like this would succeed in building sales--but not by capturing milk shake sales from competing quick-service chains or by cannibalizing other products on its menu.
Since their limited-service lodging has average gross margins of 51%--versus 38% for full-service hotel chains--most owners can operate at lower occupancy levels.
Now fast-growing retailers like AutoZone and service station chains like Jiffy Lube cut out the middleman -- Allied's traditional customers -- and they demand sophisticated logistics.
Customers bluntly told the chains their service was shoddy, their food subpar and their restaurants, in some cases, shabby.
In QSR Magazine's annual Drive-Thru Study, the only comprehensive industry comparison of customer service at fast-food chains, other restaurants have consistently outperformed McDonald's in those areas.
Hundreds of service companies from fancy hotels to fast-food chains have proven that they are not.
But consider what the last 25 years have brought to small towns: cheap overnight delivery service, cable television, USA Today, national retail chains, Internet access, cell phone coverage and broadband.
This is a significant shift in consumer behavior that is disrupting existing value chains for video content providers, advertisers and mobile service providers.
FORBES: Why The Future Of Video Depends On The Mobile Carriers
Further afield in Seattle where chains are also now required to display calories (the practice also spread to California), a study of 37 sit-down and quick service burger, pizza, sandwich, and Tex-Mex chains in the area found fast-food entrees contained about 19 less calories only 18 months after the regulation was implemented.
FORBES: Why Soda Ban Will Work In Fight Against Obesity; Food Regulations Have Proven Record
East Ayrshire Council Museum Service has two similar links from another of Burns' original surveying chains, and a handle from one of his chains is held in the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.
Once a company's product or service becomes commoditized--often the case with big banks, hotel chains and cruise lines--why not take consumers' minds off those annoying product details and grab their attention with some forceful life advice?
And there are few more valuable predictors for the Christmas shopping season than plans by major chains for staffing up with temporary salespeople, drivers, customer service reps and cashiers to help get them through the busy season.
Generally I find that customer service standards in restaurants and hotels is far better than in shops (although small independant shops tend to be much better than supermarkets and large chains), and that the more mature staff tend to give better service than their younger colleagues.
Employees at all the chains around the world now attend training four times a year at which customer-service initiatives are hammered home.
On the other hand, if a franchisee insists he has to go above and beyond a brand standard to compete--say, by offering free broadband Internet service or extra pillows--Ledsinger has to know when to say okay. (Chains need to police the impulses to go up market, too, lest their other units suffer by comparison.) The warmth and fuzziness, he hopes, will trickle down.
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